Sentinels: Lion Heart

by Doranna Durgin

  Ryan! Lyn, fury in ocelot, sprinted straight down the side of the rock formation, a blur with a long, graceful tail. She tore through Gausto’s setup, claws flashing and accurate; they didn’t see her coming. Whirlwind Lyn, slashing and ripping, left them bleeding, left them cursing, left them crying out in surprise. She pounced at Fortun, twenty-five pounds taking him in the chest and clawing up and over even as he staggered backward; she dug in deep to launch from shoulders, twisted in midair to flip back at him, and ended up completely latched on the arm that had a gun at the end of it; she sank her teeth into his elbow.

  Joe heard the crack of bone from where he lay, the thunk of the gun against ground, his vision just marginally clear enough to follow the action. For she hadn’t yet hesitated, and she didn’t now—she ignored Fortun’s howl of pain and sprang away to the layered circles of amulets, flipping them into the air, disrupting their pattern. She darted to the dead man, trying to pull him from the spring—and, thwarted by his sheer bulk, bounded away again, flipping Fortun’s gun away into the darkness on the way past.

  She ended up at Ryan’s side, panting lightly, standing with her head lowered in obvious protective threat. That was it, she said to him, as if they’d always spoken mind-to-mind. That was the moment.

  He wanted to respond, but there was nothing in him left to do it. He wanted to tell her that it had been for nothing, because he’d lost his grip on the inward retreat. He wanted to tell her that without his ability to pull within and hide himself—even if it meant losing himself—the unleashed power had reached its tipping point. The it’s gonna blow point.

  But he thought she had the idea, from the way the ground heaved and half the rock formation came suddenly tumbling down toward them. Or from the way Gausto shouted some unintelligible phrase and scrambled to his bleeding legs, the way all of them fled without bothering to snag so much as a partially charged amulet in their wake.

  He thought from the way she flung her smaller body over his, covering his head and shoulders as best she could, she had a pretty damned good idea at that. Run, he tried to tell her—as if she could get far enough away for her shields to withstand any part of this. As if anyone would.

  Some of it must have gotten through. I’m not going anywhere, she told him. You can fix this. I know you can.

  But he couldn’t.

  He had nowhere to go, not anymore—and it was his very presence that now inflamed the situation, the very call of the his own nature to the tap Gausto had put into the mountain.

  Here.

  It wasn’t so much a voice as a feeling. An unfamiliar feeling, at that. Personalities he’d brushed against without actually meeting; essences he’d encountered simply by being here and being who he was.

  Here.

  No explanations. No details.

  Here.

  Joe shifted, moving toward that invitation.

  Ryan? Ryan, my God, don’t die—stay with me, please, stay with me!

  Here.

  While his very presence inflamed the mountain, the earth’s roar growing around them, the displaced rocks growing bigger, bouncing farther, trees cracking, the amazing thunderous crash of a small helicopter in the distant background.

  And so he went. He had no voice to say I’m sorry, Lyn, but he had just enough of a rasping purr, just enough movement in his head to offer the faintest indication of a loving head rub. With her cry of desolate dismay echoing in his mind, he went.

  Chapter 21

  G austo…gone again, as if Lyn cared. The dead man hung over the stream, amulets strewn around him—blackened and smoking, melting into the ground with a stench that seared her nose and mind both.

  Gausto and his men might live out the night; they might not. She’d shredded them fiercely. They had no transportation, no gear, nothing but their slick city suits and their slick city shoes.

  And they were on a mountain that hated them.

  She closed away the thoughts of them. She reached inside for the human—cautiously, because she wasn’t sure how the mountain might react, or how the change itself might be affected by the mountain’s power. But she saw the familiar flicker behind her eyelids, felt the surge of change—felt it come cleanly upon her, and gave herself up to it. In the next moment she stood on human feet—knees that felt loose, legs wobbling. No time for it. She ran to the dead man, wrapping her fingers around the lapels of his suit and hauling him away from the spring, his head higher than his feet.

  But no more than that. Let Gausto run, let the debris of his passing scatter behind him, let the chopper smolder in its hard landing. Clean-up crews would get it all. Lyn barely noticed it—the backpack, the blood on the ground, the rock formation on which she’d so recently perched now half collapsed around its own base, some of it precariously close to where Ryan lay, every bit as still as she’d left him.

  She couldn’t taste him. She couldn’t feel him. When she went searching for the mountain’s power, she no longer found his trace lingering within it.

  As though he was gone. As though the cougar somehow breathed on without him.

  Ryan… She ran back to him, stumbling over a fragment of the rock formation and going down—but not particularly caring, as long as she ended up next to him. She crawled the last foot, put a tentative hand on his leg…moved closer yet and let her fingers sink into the thick, dense fur at his shoulder. Ryan, come back.

  She knew her voice was going out—just as it had reached him the moment before she’d pounced from her high perch. Now, as then, that mental call reached out past the confines of her own mind; it felt alive.

  But now, as then…no one answered.

  She inched closer, pulling his heavy head into her lap. Blood from his nose, from his ears…from the furrow on his cheek where damned Gausto had come too close with his show-off warning shots. Lyn stretched out the hem of her shirt, wishing she’d worn something more substantial. A jacket and shoes might be nice, too; she shivered in the chill night breeze. Didn’t matter; she’d take the ocelot if she had to. For now…she cleaned Ryan’s face as best she could, running trembling fingers over the black lines at the edges of his white muzzle, over the fine, short hair between his eyes and up his forehead. His head lolled; his jaws parted slightly. His eyelids were open just enough to see the glint of his eyes…and that they did not move, did not respond to her. She hunted for him again—hunted for him endlessly, for any sign of his trace.

  She still couldn’t taste him. Still couldn’t feel him.

  “Ryan,” she said, and her voice broke, “what have you done?”

  The breeze bit into her bare arms, but…The ocelot had warm fur and could curl up through this high summer night with ease, but the ocelot had no hands to stroke this wounded Sentinel, this lover of hers. The ocelot had no fingers to caress him, even if those fingers were still stained with the blood of the men she’d so recently attacked.

  “Ryan,” she said again, only a whisper this time, “what have you done?” She kissed that massive predator’s head on the space between his eyes and settled onto the cold ground beside him, one heavy leg over her shoulder, as close as she could get to the pale fur of his chest. Face-to-face, curled up into his warmth, his shallow breath stirring the hair at her temple, his powerful jaw just touching her brow.

  Down below, the Sentinel emergency response team had no doubt reached Annorah and the wounded, choppering in as close as they could get, maybe even to the hotel parking lot itself. Nick himself might have come along, looking to sort things out. Flagstaff itself was safe; the Mrs. Rosados of the area were safe again—the human sensitives, the vulnerables. The people who just happened to be at the wrong stoplight at the wrong time, without Joe Ryan there to put things to right before the accident happened.

  Eventually, someone would come for him…for her. For now, she was in her lover’s arms—whether or not he’d ever return to her. She relaxed, warm enough; she breathed in the distinct scent of him, for the first time perceiving only the scent and none of the trace
. Her shields, drawn so tight, expanded to take him in.

  And she fell asleep, surrounded by Joe Ryan and surrounding him, and barely aware of the tears on her cheeks.

  Your people are coming. We cannot keep your Joe Ryan any longer. Call him back.

  As Lyn slept, some part of her was aware of the cold ground, aware of the warm fur, aware of the weight of him where he’d slumped farther against her.

  And yet deep within, she was simultaneously alert and aware and awake…and listening. Immersed in a cloud of featureless color—of white and blue and black and yellow, each aligned with its own cardinal direction—but otherwise lost.

  Your people are coming. Call your Joe Ryan back.

  She gave a mental blink, stymied by this dual state of being, scrambling to understand the voices. A chorus, a deep reverberation, children laughing at the same time old men muttered and young girls giggled.

  We cannot keep him safe any longer. He must return to himself now, or go on his way.

  Oh, that didn’t sound good. But…

  How—?

  Laughter, then. Find him.

  And how?

  Only more laughter. Are you a tracker?

  But I have no place to start! She wailed it at them, at all the voices…and the voices were silent. Gone. With her outer self safe and warm and tucked into the cougar’s embrace…Oh, God, was he getting cooler?

  Am I a tracker?

  She had a place to start, all right.

  I love him.

  I know him.

  So she went looking for what she knew, what she loved. She closed out all else, and she hunted Ryan’s trace. She pulled out every bit of her focus, every bit of her skill, every bit of her determination, and she turned it on the most important trail in her entire life.

  And she found nothing.

  With the colors thinning around her, with her awareness of the cold increasing, her awareness of his shallow, stuttered breathing increasing, she found nothing.

  She took a deep breath, her body reflecting silent effort, and into those thinning colors, she shouted, Joe Ryan! I love you! I want you! And then, after a hesitation in which she realized something felt unsaid, Please…won’t you trust me?

  Trust me…? The words seemed to echo back at her—until she quite abruptly realized they weren’t hers at all.

  Yes! she cried, wild with hope. YES! Always!

  Always…? A little stronger, that echoed word, and with it…a mere hint of trace. Trust me…?

  Always, she said, as firmly as anyone ever could. Always, Joe Ryan, and forever.

  Chapter 22

  J oe woke up naked.

  No, nearly naked.

  In his own bed, surrounded by his own cats—all four of them at that—and wearing his own boxers. Pillows everywhere, quilts piled around, the overhead fan on a lazy middle speed and a midafternoon monsoon storm beating against closed sliding-glass doors.

  On a hunch, he rolled over just enough to rest his face on the pillow beside him, breathing it in.

  Definitely Lyn.

  Definitely holy cow ow, too. Someone’s been using your back as a dance floor, boy-o.

  “Ryan!” Lyn came out of the bathroom in a set of casual yoga pants and sleeveless tee, her face flushed, her hair curled and shower damp. “You’re not supposed to be awake yet. I meant to have coffee ready for you.”

  “Ah,” he said. “Just as well, then. I’ll make the coffee.” But he didn’t move. He thought about how much it had hurt to do that very thing and he decided maybe he didn’t need to be awake yet after all. Still…

  “I have a first name, you know,” he said. “It’s Joe. My mother was kind of fond of it.”

  She shrugged, pressing a towel around the ends of her hair and then tossing it over the railing. Without hesitation, she crawled onto the bed beside him, ignoring disgruntled cats, her movement as unconsciously sinuous as her ocelot. “Ryan,” she said, and purred it, her voice throaty.

  “Oh hell,” he said instantly. “Ryan it is.”

  “Uh-huh,” she agreed. Her hand landed on his chest, settled there. It seemed restless. Mischievous, even.

  “Careful,” he said. “I think someone was using me for a soccer ball.” Come to think of it—“Hey. What happened? And where is everyone?”

  “You don’t know what happened?” she asked, surprised. Her hand did indeed wander—over the flat planes of his chest, over the strong lines of his collarbones.

  “Up to a point. Details…not so much.” He blinked, held his hand up for his own inspection. “Aah, I can see every one of ’em. Ruger was right at that.” He looked at her, then. “The team? Ruger? I saw the explosion…”

  “At brevis medical.” She wrinkled her nose. “But they’ll recover. Shea and Michael took the worst of it, but we got word today—they’ll live.” She resumed her explorations, finding the side of his neck.

  He sucked in a breath. Definitely waking up, boy-o. “We?”

  “You. Me. Annorah. She’s here until we finish sorting this out. Nick wanted instant communication.”

  “She’s here?”

  “Take a breath. She’s in town right now. Your pantry didn’t suit her. Besides, she’s…changed.”

  Joe grumbled expressively. She moved her hand, quite deliberately, and he grumbled in an entirely different way. His hand closed over her wrist, there under the covers. Under the boxers. “You know,” he said, “I can barely move.”

  “No problem.” She smiled at him, a totally Cheshire-ocelot kind of smile. “I can move just fine. See?”

  “Now that you mention it.” His words might have been a little strangled, as she so swiftly straddled him. He caught her hips, stilled her. “Lyn…last thing I remember, I was up at the top of the world, severing the connection Gausto had forged between me and that power tap. And Gausto kept—” His hand went to his cheek; he found a stiff scab there, a long furrow tracing his cheekbone. “Gausto.”

  “We don’t know. His chopper went down, but his blood trail veered away from the landing site. We don’t think he ever reached it—the pilot panicked and left without him.

  “I have some of Ruger’s salve,” she said. “The response team doesn’t think it’ll scar too badly.”

  Joe frowned, but not in concern about any scar. “And then I couldn’t…and I went…somewhere else…?”

  Lyn shrugged. “My invitation came without instructions or explanations. I was only there long enough to find you.”

  “I remember that part,” he said, and tightened his hands on her hips, shifting against her so she sighed and let her head tip back. “I remember being found.” And for a few moments he enjoyed those memories—they enjoyed those memories. Sighs and gentle pressure and soft touch. Until, of course, he had to frown and add, “But I haven’t the faintest idea how I got here.”

  “The response team that came for Ruger’s crew,” she said, somewhat distantly. “You think no one noticed that ruckus on the mountain? They got up there plenty fast, got us down just as fast—had their own chopper. And healer, which is why you’re able to do—yes, that—”

  Barely. But barely enough, stretching carefully, yearning carefully, touching carefully. Until she brought him to another stop, her eyes coming open and her hands stilling on his torso. “How could I forget?”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Is that a trick question? Or am I supposed to guess something I’m not supposed to have forgotten but don’t have a clue? Because I mean to tell you, there’s a lot I haven’t put together yet—”

  She stopped him with an expedient lick and nibble, precisely placed. “Hush. No. This isn’t something you know. This is about me clearing your name.”

  “Say what?” He sat straight up—or tried to, but every part of his back from butt to shoulders seized and dropped him back down again.

  “For one thing, we’ve pretty much confirmed it—that amulet buried beside the house is how Gausto tied your trace into the mountain. Mrs. Rosado’s visitors left it, no doubt—a
nd right after that, you got sick with the cold that wasn’t a cold. For another thing, I asked Nick for a roster of Sentinels in the Vegas area during the time of Dean’s killing. Before, after, etcetera. And then with what Annorah told me—Don’t look at me like that. She said it was the right thing to say something. She said you’d understand. Anyway, I found a clerical, a non-shifter who was working cover in the Martin family casino. He requested a transfer about six months after you moved out. To Alaska. When Nick had someone in brevis Alaska approach him for questioning, the guy pretty much melted down. Turns out he’d leaked information about you and Dean and Make It Happen—had no idea it would turn out as it did, just trying to make some extra cash.”

  “Ah,” Joe said, trying to decide how he felt. Vindicated or betrayed all over again or suddenly free. Later, that’s what he’d decide. “So you got your dark Sentinel after all.”

  “More like the color of white underwear that goes in the wash with black jeans.” She wrinkled her nose at him, which damned well tickled, and he couldn’t help but squirm a little, so she did it again and laughed, and they lost themselves in that for a little while.

  “How long,” Joe asked breathlessly, so very much wishing he could do more than lie on his back and reach for her. “How long?”

  “Annorah?” she guessed. “Oh, easily all afternoon.”

  He grinned. And then didn’t. “What has she told them? What has Ruger told them? Or…you?” Because if the Sentinels knew of his true abilities, of his renewed sensitivities…this sudden new sense of freedom he had could disappear in short order.

  She didn’t have to guess his concern. And she didn’t make him wait, although her hands crept back under the covers and back under the boxers that, truly, could barely be called being worn at this point anyway. “I don’t believe Ruger will remember much. Even if he does, he won’t. Annorah seems somewhat confused—events happened so quickly, you know. As for me…I never really did understand what was happening on that mountaintop.”