Sentinels: Leopard Enchanted (Harlequin Nocturne)

by Doranna Durgin

  “They might not find us here—but they shouldn’t have found us at all. How could they track us so quickly?” She released a breath he felt along the back of his neck. “I only saw them because I had to, you know, find a bush. They’re down in the gully between these two rises.”

  The words should have made sense; they didn’t. They floated away along with his grasp on the immediate situation, leaving him only the understanding that he was missing something. It eluded him no matter how he swam though his thoughts, grasping at threads of reality.

  A firm but careful hand turned his head. Cool lips found his, molding to his mouth and moving in a gentle rhythm that grabbed every bit of his attention. Her teeth nibbled; her tongue teased him, a touch and then gone.

  Complete and utter clarity folded around him, cutting through inner chaos to present him only with Ana. Ana’s scent, Ana’s mouth, Ana’s hands on his shoulders and slipping into his shirt.

  Ana’s cold, cold hands.

  Ian gasped something between a laugh and a protest, grabbing those hands and enfolding them in his, chafing them slightly. She shivered and he went one better, pulling her to curl up in his lap and wrapping his arms and the blanket around them.

  There they sat, with the morning settling in and the sky brightening ever so subtly as the sun’s angle changed, starting to fill in the gaps and shadows of the folded mountainside. A faint mutter of male voices reached Ian’s ears, rising from below as sound was wont to do in the mountains. He caught no words but heard a tone of frustration.

  They were looking, she’d said. And Ian would guess they had good reason to expect their fugitives to be here—or they wouldn’t have arrived so promptly in the first place.

  The woman in his arms held the answer to that. She held any number of answers.

  Ian could fill in some of the empty spots on his own. His memory held pieces of crystalline detail—moments of agony, the awareness of his body bruising inside and out. The look on Ana’s face when the two bodyguards took hold of her. Deep fear as he’d reached for not one amulet but all of them, doing that which might save them or might kill them. Trying to direct them away, still knowing that the ones meant specifically for Sentinels would find him.

  After that...

  They’d gotten out, he knew that much. Must have been Ana’s doing. And they’d run—farther and faster than he would have countenanced under the circumstances.

  Ana’s doing.

  “You betrayed me,” he said, and heard the surprise in his own low voice. Not that he hadn’t known it before...just realizing it all over again. Especially in the wake of the world’s sweetest kiss, his salvation through inner chaos.

  It hadn’t fixed the internal bruising or the lingering ache in his face, or the angry burn of his body healing just as fast as it could. Sentinel advantage, not without its costs. If he didn’t get food soon, the whole process would collapse on itself. If he didn’t get water, it would be a moot point.

  Ana lifted her head from his chest, drawing back enough so she could meet his eyes. Cold air drifted between them, wringing another shiver from her. She didn’t seem to notice. “Yes,” she said, murmuring the words to keep them here inside this scant shelter of theirs. Her restraint somehow only leant them more meaning. “I did betray you. And then I betrayed my own people for you. And then they betrayed me. It’s a horrible, confusing mess, and right now all I know is no matter how crazy it is, I love you and I think you know it.”

  He had no response for her, no matter how it felt to hear the words in the moment. Couldn’t turn his feelings for her off; couldn’t turn his trust for her back on. Not just like that.

  She dove into his silence, still barely audible in her intensity. “Let’s just get through the mess, Ian. Just feel what you feel right now and so will I, and let’s get out of this and we’ll see how we feel then.”

  He let the words sink in. Feel what you feel right now. “Yes,” he told her, seeing relief in the faint sheen of the tears she blinked away. “Let’s do that.”

  “Good,” she said, nonsensical words with a tremble that told him she wasn’t nearly as certain of herself as she’d seemed. She breathed deeply. “Yes. Okay.”

  He took a breath, scrubbing his hand over his aching face. They needed food and water, and to get off this mountain past Lerche’s men...two of whom had tracked them with unlikely certainty. “Okay,” he echoed her. “First things, first. How are you?”

  She hesitated to answer, lifting her head to listen to the movement of the two men still significantly below them. “Cold,” she murmured. “But that’s probably obvious. Thirsty. And I’m afraid I pretty much used myself up last night. You?”

  He tucked the blanket around her shoulders and answered only with another question. “And from the working Lerche used on you?”

  “Ah,” she said. “That. If there are aftereffects, I can’t feel them.” Her low voice took on a bitter note. “I think it was all about the pain.”

  In that bitter note, he heard all kinds of self-recrimination. “Ana, look at me.” When her startled gaze met his in the shadows of the slanting tree trunk, the surrounding scrub oak and jut of rock, he shook his head. “Be grateful you didn’t truly understand the man before now. That you couldn’t says more about you than it does about him.”

  “Naive?” she suggested. “Malleable? Downright stu—”

  He growled, finding himself suddenly closer to the big cat than he’d thought he was, the human veneer scraped away by the events of the past days. She startled into silence, a flicker of fear on her face—but it quickly passed, replaced by a wondering openness as he found the words to say, “Don’t talk about yourself like that. It’s no shame to have a fundamentally good nature. Or to be taken in by a man like Lerche when he’s had so much control over you for so long. But now—” he tightened his hold on the blanket “—now you know better. Now you move forward, as you said. Now we move forward.”

  She blinked. “Okay,” she said, and her whisper this time came from emotion and not from their precarious situation. She swallowed quite visibly, took a deep breath and said, “Well, that’s it. Nothing from the amulet. I’m hungry and tired and cold, and I don’t feel as if I can be of much help when it comes to these men, but I’ll try.”

  Relief swept through him. Maybe she’d been affected by his mass amulet release, maybe not. But not so much that it dogged her.

  “We’ll try,” he said, and followed sudden impulse—kissing her forehead, her cheeks and then lingering a moment on her mouth. But not long, because they didn’t have long.

  The men had started to quarter the slope beneath them, no longer traveling up the easy gully bottom.

  Ana’s cold hand closed around his arm, above the deep abrasions left by the restraint. Under other circumstances, that wound and the others like it would have been well on the way to healing by now. But too much other damage had been done, and they were far from life threatening, and his overwhelmed body hadn’t even tried. Ana said, “But you, Ian? What happened?”

  Of course she had no idea. She’d been unconscious. And even if not, she’d have had a difficult time deciphering the abrupt chaos he’d unleashed. The targeted workings had no doubt been drawn directly to Ian himself. Not just Sentinel, but full field Sentinel.

  Juicy target, at that.

  “Lerche underestimated a few things,” he said. “You. Me. And how familiar a Sentinel AmTech could be with all his precious amulets.”

  She just looked at him, a frown starting at her brow.

  “I triggered all his toys,” Ian said. “Aimed what I could at them and deflected what I could from us.”

  The frown turned to horror. “And absorbed the rest? Ian!” That last came in a furious whisper that threatened to break free of their little respite.

  Ian shrugged, not a little abashed. “Hey,�
� he said. “I knew what was in that case before I did it.”

  For a moment, it appeased her. And then the frown returned. “So you could have done that at any time?”

  A random spike of pain shot through Ian’s head; he winced, and wished their hunters would hurry it up. He needed the element of surprise that leaping from this hidey-hole would produce, and he needed it to happen before this spate of functionality faded.

  For he had the distinct feeling it would fade. Was fading.

  “Lerche didn’t leave the amulet case in the room until that morning,” he said, briefly splitting his attention—making a tentative foray outward with his inner awareness—brushing against the men below. Brushing against the amulets they so foolishly carried. “It was supposed to intimidate me or something. I doubt he realized I could identify them or trigger them from that chair.”

  “But after that,” she said, persisting, “you could have done it?”

  Suddenly he understood. “Ana,” he said. “I am so sorry Lerche hurt you. I’m damned sorry he hurt me. But triggering those amulets...it was a last stand kind of thing. It could have gone wrong in so many ways.” He hesitated. “Do you remember the first time he tried to aim the amulet at you? The way it went wrong?”

  She worried her lip, her gaze gone inward. “Vaguely. Yes. It hit his men. And then it hit...” She looked at him, startled. “You. It hit you.”

  “Just stalling for time,” he said, drawing breath at another stab of pain, closing his eyes against it. “Took him a while to catch on. I don’t think even then that he had any notion I could trigger them all. He might not have figured it out yet.”

  She stroked cold fingers across his brow and down the side of the cheek that hadn’t been broken. Soothing. “So you waited...”

  He tipped his head into her touch. “For all sorts of reasons. But mostly... I didn’t know what it would do to you. Or to me.” He opened his eyes to pin her with that gaze. “If not for you, Ana, I would have died in that room.”

  “If not for me,” she said bitterly, “you wouldn’t have been in that room in the first place.” But she quickly shook her head. “No, I’m not going there. We have other things to do.”

  As became ever more obvious, with the men quartering upward, the tension in their voices making it clear they knew they were closing in.

  Ana dropped her voice so the words barely had sound at all. “What can I do?”

  Ian swept another feathery touch over the men—men who would be invisible to that touch had they been without amulets. But they weren’t, and they were closer than he’d thought. Close enough to recognize the tracker they carried, and close enough to find the far-from-silent offensive amulets—pure energy of the sort that would release with concussive violence. He smiled darkly, only to be struck with another shaft of sharp pain, a thing that shot from one temple down the side of his face and radiated out along the nerves of his arms, spreading to encompass damaged ribs. He couldn’t help his grunt of response, the snarl against his awareness of the blanketing fog that closed in on his mind in the wake of it.

  “Ian,” she said, desperation giving her murmur a new intensity. “Please, tell me how to help!”

  “Come here,” he managed to tell her, although there was hardly any distance between them to start with. “Hold me, and put yourself back in your mind to how you felt when you kissed me. When you woke me.”

  He was asking the impossible, and he knew it. Trust me enough to make yourself just that vulnerable while death creeps ever closer.

  But she didn’t argue. She didn’t ask how that could possibly help, wasting what little time they had. She twined a leg over his, slipping her hand beneath his shirt to avoid his ribs and hold him low over his belly. Her head tucked into the hollow of his shoulder and neck, her breath the only warm thing about her.

  Except for the warmth that came from within, seeping into him like a balm. Clearing him. Giving him the focus to reach out one more time, keeping the sense of those approaching amulets until they came within the range he could manage without risking misdirection.

  One final effort, reaching out to embrace the acrid sense of the repulsive things, twisting them awake as the taste of them washed across his senses, making Ana flinch—

  The sound of the workings rang across the mountainside like twin gunshots, echoing away into silence.

  Ian shuddered in the wake of them and let the fog wash him away.

  Chapter 13

  Somehow the lingering sensation of the amulet working felt even uglier this time. Ana swallowed hard against a dry throat and managed a raspy whisper. “Are we safe?”

  She couldn’t quite bring herself to ask the real question. Are they dead?

  By way of response, the tension drained from Ian’s body; he sagged against her, his head lolling down to rest against hers.

  “Ian!” She ducked out from beneath him, and then knew it for a mistake as he continued to fall and she struggled to control his descent. In the end all she could do was cradle his face from the impact. For all his lean grace, he was heavy with muscle—she didn’t imagine she could do much to move him.

  Though she was almost certain that if she put herself in the calm, open state of mind that seemed to most affect him, she could bring him around. She just didn’t know if she should. His cheek still burned against her hand; his breath stuttered against pain. She had no way to know how much damage had been done—by Lerche, or by the explosion of workings Ian had triggered himself.

  Best let him sleep. And heal.

  Besides, there wasn’t anything to be done here that she couldn’t do herself. Not if the men were disabled.

  If they weren’t, then she was in over her head to start with.

  Ana pulled the ragged blanket more tightly around her shoulders with one hand and lifted the drag of it with the other, stepping out from their scant shelter to scan the hillside below—a view of tree trunks and scattered underbrush, everything scrubby and stunted and dry. Only as she shivered in renewing panic did she finally locate the three men—a little cluster of lumpy forms that slowly resolved into awkward bodies in awkward poses, each equipped in camouflage outfits and equipment packs and what looked from here to be holstered pistols.

  To her shame, her first thoughts were utterly selfish. Instead of regretting their deaths—for they surely looked to be dead—she found herself relieved. Not just because they so likely carried the supplies that she and Ian so badly needed, but because Lerche had sent three of them.

  With those three now down and so many others affected by Ian’s amulet explosion, Lerche would have fewer yet to send after them again. Hard to imagine herself so callous.

  Then again, hard to imagine herself taking up against the Core.

  It doesn’t mean they’re wrong. It doesn’t mean the Sentinels aren’t out of control. It just means that Lerche is an awful human being.

  After all, he’d been in control of her life since those preteen days when she’d arrived, grieving and confused. He’d kept her so isolated that she had no idea how other major Core posses functioned.

  Take your own advice, Ana Dikau. Now was not the time to worry about such things. It was much better to scurry on down the hill, grasping at tree trunks for support and losing the blanket along the way as it snagged in a prickly scrub oak.

  Didn’t matter. The men had coats.

  She reached the three of them and looked back up the hill, only then realizing how close she and Ian had come to disaster. From here, the fallen tree that canted over their tiny hollow of a shelter was clearly visible. From here, since she knew what to look for, she could see glimpses of Ian’s shirt.

  They’d been close enough to unleash these workings, if they’d but known it. But she put that, too, aside, and went to each man in turn, ascertaining that they were, in fact, dead—or close enough to it th
at she couldn’t tell the difference, cold fingers against the cooling skin of their necks.

  It came as a relief, in the end. It meant she could rob them without compunction. And she did.

  Each man had water—bottles at their waists, water bladders and tubing in their packs. She snagged a bottle that was almost empty and forced herself to a single swallow, then put it aside to wrestle away the man’s pack, and then, with more difficulty, his coat.

  Not so easy to handle the dead weight of a large man, after all.

  The coat swallowed her, instantly trapping warmth. It was activewear, thinly insulated and full of zippers, toggles and pockets, but it made all the difference in the world. She luxuriated in it for a long moment, and then jostled herself into motion—adjusting it at the waist and tightening it in all places so she could continue her plundering.

  By the time she was done, she’d emptied the water bottle and gathered two more, along with three packs, two more jackets and a vest—not to mention the gloves and hats. It took two trips to get everything up the hill, after which she no longer felt cold at all.

  She sat beside Ian to riffle the packs, finding a gold mine of energy bars, a trail map marked with the men’s progress and several precious heatable MRE packets. She tore into one right away, heating the stroganoff bag and dipping the spoon inside to hold near Ian’s nose.

  His face twitched; she ate that portion before it cooled and then presented another. As the third spoon approached, he opened his eyes. “What?” he said, and sounded annoyed while he was at it. “Seriously?”

  Ana grinned, as out of place as it seemed. “I know, right? Not quite manna from heaven, but...pull yourself together, Ian. Eat up. We’ve got decisions to make.” She reclaimed the spoon to swallow its contents and kept it in her mouth as she helped him straighten up, settling one of the jackets across his shoulders. He still frowned, expression bleary, but she decided first things, first and thrust the food at him, relinquishing the utensil. “Eat that,” she reiterated, and unwrapped an energy bar, breaking it in half. “And then eat this.”